ABSTRACT
Shen Congwen is a special case in the history of modern Chinese literature. The uniqueness and complexity of Shen Congwen and his creative writings have long been acknowledged in all quarters. But what is it that gives him and his writings their character? What kind of cultural psychology do they reflect? This is a literary enigma. If we examine Shen Congwen and his works within their broad cultural context, perhaps we can find the key to solving this riddle. The character of Shen’s works clearly evinces an interweaving of three cultural strands, coming from the West Hunanese Miao, the Han, and the West. This pattern came into being through a great collision of the Miao and Han cultures across two centuries, and of the Chinese and Western cultures in the 1920s and 1930s. When we look into how this interweaving occurred, and its patterns and particularities, the organic wholeness of Shen Congwen and his works come into much clearer view.
